Many patients and patient families of the IWK Health Centre are grateful for the care they received, but Kandra West-Pettigrew wants to continue expressing her thanks for many years to come.
Kandra and her family, including her husband Bryan and their daughter Madison, are the organizers of the annual Swing for Scoliosis Golf Tournament. Each year the tournament brings awareness to scoliosis and raises money for the IWK’s orthopedic department. The first tournament in 2023 raised $14,000, and this past July the tournament raised $16,000.
Before 2023, Kandra had no experience fundraising, especially to the level of a charity golf tournament, but she was motivated by the exceptional care her family received at the IWK.
“This tournament is quite literally a thank you to Dr. Ron El-Hawary and his orthopedic scoliosis team for what they did for Madison when she had her scoliosis surgery in July of 2020,” says Kandra. “There were no care team members that we met where we did not feel a phenomenal sense of wow to their knowledge, their expertise, and how they work with the kids.”
The tournament is a welcoming space for all golfers, from those diagnosed with scoliosis to those who learning about the condition through the tournament.
“Never in my wildest dreams, when we started on this venture, did we ever expect the support that we've gotten. We have such a close-knit group of people in our corner, whether it's the golf family, whether it's our own immediate families, the scoliosis family, or the hospital families,” says Kandra. “As this tournament becomes more well known, the more it's coming together. It’s humbling to see everyone show up and want to help us to support and donate to a worthy cause.
Swing for Scoliosis’s goal is not just to raise money for the IWK, they also want to raise awareness about scoliosis. Madison’s diagnosis came as a total surprise to their family. In 2018, Madison’s grandmother was visiting and texted Kandra saying that she noticed Madison’s shoulder blade was popping out.
They kept an eye on it and saw their family physician in November of 2018. Their doctor immediately sent them to the IWK for a 3D x-ray of her spine. In February 2019, the family met Doctor El-Hawary and got the official diagnosis. The scoliosis was severe, progressing past the point of being given a brace to correct the curvatures.
“We were gobsmacked. We had so many questions like what is it and where did it come from.” Kandra says her daughter was experiencing no symptoms of pain, and they initially thought the appearance of her shoulder blade could have been from an old sports injury. But Madison had an s-shape curve in her spine, the top curve had a 65-degree bend, and the curve below was 45.
Madison underwent spinal fusion surgery in 2020 to help straighten the curves of her spine and prevent any future deterioration. During her surgery, they placed two titanium rods in her spine, three brackets and screws.
Kandra is a fierce advocate for scoliosis screening in schools, something administered in Canadian schools in the past. Dr. El-Hawary, chief of pediatric orthopedic surgery
at IWK Health, agrees with Kandra’s cause.
“Having scoliosis screenings in schools could be very beneficial to try to identify early and try to prevent the need for surgical treatment of scoliosis,” he says.
Dr. El-Hawary says scoliosis is very common in adolescence, with about 3-4 percent of adolescents having the condition. But most of the time scoliosis is mild and does not require any treatment. Mild scoliosis that does need to be treated can often be done with a brace. Dr. El-Hawary says bracing is successful in about three-quarters of teenagers with scoliosis of a moderate size.
Donations to the IWK’s Orthopedic Department are used to fund research, database management, and support costs associated with finding new patients for clinical trials.
“Most of the research that we have performed, directly as a result of funding, involves evaluating how the spine grows in three dimensions,” says El-Hawary. “Through this technique, we're able to assess how different treatments for scoliosis can affect
how the spine grows over the long term. That allows us to fine-tune the types of surgeries we offer to patients and helps us develop newer techniques.”
Looking to the future of Swing for Scoliosis, Kandra wants the event to be a place where IWK scoliosis patients and their loved ones can come together, share their experiences, and build their support network.
“We want people to know there is a community out here, especially for those who are currently going through the IWK, that don't know what Swing for Scoliosis is, to try and just get our communication and platform to the people who need it. One day at a time,” says Kandra.
